Trip to Sabah 2

Being enchanted with our first trip to Kota Kinabalu, Sabah earlier this year, when my sister and brother in law recommended a family trip to Sabah, I was all for it. This time it wasn’t just me and wifey. It was me, wifey, my mom, sister & her husband, her husband’s mom and of course my 2 nieces. Never been on a holiday with so many people, so the change was refreshing and of course, I enjoyed my time with my nieces as well.

We stayed at Le Meridien in KK, which is a newer hotel… hence needless to stay, it was still in mint condition and it really was worth every ringgit we paid. I know this hotel is a bit pricey and when my sister first recommended it, I wasn’t sure if I could comfortably manage it. But then I managed to get a discounted rate from the hotel’s website itself – pay for 2 nights, and the 3rd night is free. The room per night is RM 375 per night, but with the offer, I paid RM 750 for 3 nights… quite a bargain if you ask me. Forgot to take some pictures of the lobby, but I did manage to snap some pics of the room. The one thing I absolutely loved about the room and wished more hotels would follow – a DVD player in the room. So you are not solely stuck to ASTRO’s sucky collection of movies which are repeated 700 times a day. We actually went down to a shopping complex to buy some DVDs so that we can watch them at night.

The waterfront bar and restaurants were just a stone’s throw away from our hotel… so that was really great. Only thing I missed was a 7-11. If it had that, it would have made it perfect. So most nights we had dinner at the water front restaurants and some drinks after, all at the water front. It was really cool.

The main reason we chose KK was because my brother-in-law wanted to participate in 10km run which was taking place in KK. I spent most of my time swimming, watching TV and just lazing around. We did do an island hop on our second last day and we visited Pulau Manukan and Mamutik. We only went to 2 this time, as we were going with my nieces and we didn’t want it to be too taxing. Turns out, my nieces are absolute water bums just like me. Won’t talk much about the water in the islands, as I mentioned in my earlier posting it was crystal clear and probably cleaner than your tap water.
One of the other activities which we did want to do was visit the Orang Utan sanctuary, but the Taxi ride was RM 80 one way and the admission was RM 65 per person… pretty steep if you ask me. So we skipped that activity totally. Oh which reminds me. Another one thing I don’t like about KK is the taxi service. It’s a flat rate of RM 10 anyway in the city area, RM 30 to the airport and RM 80 for anywhere beyond that distance. Its really pricey and I think our tourism ministry or transportation ministry should look into this. Sabah is a great place to visit but the one thing that will drive tourists away… is this.

If anyone is planning a trip to KK anytime soon, let me know. Will save you a lot of time of researching where to go and what to do. But I highly recommend this holiday destination to anyone who loves the sea. Look forward to hearing your comments on this.